Project Runway

Project Runway is back (oddly enough, without much fanfare from Lifetime.) The luminous, stern, and impish Heidi Klum is back. The dapper, unflappable Tim Gunn is back. The often delightfully acerbic (and sometimes downright, deliciously catty) Michael Kors and Nina Garcia are back as well (along with a parade of celebrities filling the fourth judges' chair for reasons that continue to elude me.)

And there are another 17 aspiring designers jockeying to win a place showing their collections at New York's fashion week have joined the party.

After a couple of decidedly lackluster seasons, Runway has a ways to go to capture the manic, creatively charged energy of the earlier seasons. None of the designers stood out as particularly interesting at first blush but it takes the producers and editors a few weeks to shape storylines and character arcs so that may change.

The erstwhile companion show, Models of the Runway, has been mercifully put out of its misery (it was a lackluster business that was less than interesting) and Runway runs for 90 minutes now (first run on Thursday nights.)

I still don't care about fashion (I have closet full of jeans, sneakers, and super-hero t-shirts) but I like to see creative people being creative...hopefully that feeling, which the earlier seasons offered up in spades, will come back this season. As Mr. Gunn will say, often, "make it work".